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[andrewtjb]

Hi

Is it common for Openreach to upgrade a cabinet from ECI to Huawei?

I’ve been with Vodafone broadband for past few years and was using the hg612 modem. The last time I checked with telnet it stated I was on an eci cabinet.

I recently switched to sky broadband and noticed that my dlm was reset and was put back on interleaved. Out of curiosity I looked my cabinet on telecom-tariffs and it says I’m on a Huawei line does that mean they’ve changed the cabinet?

Here's a screenshot of the cabinets in my area apparently i'm on cabinet 7.




Thanks

[j0hn]

The cabinet in place will still be an ECI if it was before.

They have since installed a VDSL (Huawei) pod to the side of the PCP.

They look the same as G.Fast pods.

If you were connected the the ECI cabinet before you likely still will be.
Ordering a new line could be on the Huawei pod.

[burakkucat]

The linked images, in the opening post of "What has happened to this cabinet.", showed a cabinet (originally deployed containing ECI electronics) which had significant metalwork expansion.

Pre-modification, a VDSL2 circuit terminating on the ECI DSLAM showed a line-card chip-set ID of IFTN. Post-modification, a line-card chip-set ID of BDCM was observed.

[meritez]

Technically moving from Vodafone to Sky is a new line, as Vodafone do LLU SMPF, but Sky tend to Fully Unbundle the line with LLU MPF, new Tie Pairs required.

[j0hn]

Technically moving from Vodafone to Sky is a new line, as Vodafone do LLU SMPF, but Sky tend to Fully Unbundle the line with LLU MPF, new Tie Pairs required.

There is no visit to the PCP for that migration, or any FTTC migration now.
No new tie pairs are required at the FTTC cabinet, the same port is used.

By a new line a I was specifically referring to a new pair as
any FTTC migration will retain the same port on the DSLAM.

[andrewtjb]

Thanks for the reply's.

I'm guessing i'm still on ECI then.

Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a way of checking the line type with the sky router as far as i can tell.

[andrewtjb]

Ok so i just looked on google street view and now i'm fairly certain they've replaced the cabinet at some point because the one street view looks completely different to the one that's currently there now.

There's also another smaller cabinet on the opposite side of the street which isn't there on google maps.

[burakkucat]

If you could take a few photographs of the cabinets and then make them available for download, that would be appreciated, please.

A link to the Google Street View images would also be interesting . . .

[andrewtjb]

So i just went to take a look before it got dark and looks like i was wrong the old one is still there but now there's two new ones.

This is the original one.


This is the one is just up the road from that one.


Then this one is on the opposite side of the road.

[j0hn]

2 new ones?

Image 1 is your PCP, it's been there long since before fibre came along.

Image 2 is an ECI Fibre cabinet, probably installed years ago when FTTC 1st came along.
They haven't installed these since 2016 so it can't be new.
It has an angled top that I have never seen before.

Image 3 is a small Huawei cabinet.
This will be the newest of the 3 cabinets.

I'm most curious about the ECI cabinet in your 2nd picture.

[burakkucat]

Thank you for those photographs.

The first cabinet is the telephony primary cross-connection point (PCP). The second cabinet contains an ECI Hi-FOCuS M41 DSLAM, with a very interesting modification to its top giving space for some additional electronics. The third cabinet contains a Huawei SmartAX MA5616 DSLAM.

j0hn -- So there's no pod on the PCP but an additional (Huawei) cabinet and the existing ECI cabinet has been expanded in an upwards direction.

Edit: I now see that j0hn posted whilst I was wandering around in Google Maps Street View.

[j0hn]

I'm unable to find the PCP on Google maps to see the original cabinet.

I'm also intrigued by the top hat on the ECI.

I see there's no side pod.
The other cabinets I've seen on codelook that say VDSL sidepod actually have a side pod on the PCP.

Looking again at the image in the OP I see PCP7 doesn't actually say VDSL side pod at all but rather incremental build. So that's me not reading things right again.

[burakkucat]

I'm unable to find the PCP on Google maps to see the original cabinet.

Me, likewise.  I must have spent half-an-hour "wandering around" Abertillery.

I'm also intrigued by the top hat on the ECI.

<Nods in agreement.>

[andrewtjb]

I guess that cabinet is older than i thought.

The picture on maps isn't that great anyway


You can see the other cabinets aren't there but i'm not sure how old the google images are.

[andrewtjb]

Heres the map link if your interested.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/t7HxiePTfEomeUzK7